Arriva Rail Could Be Wound Up Before Christmas

The future of Arriva Rail is in doubt after one of their train companies, Northern Rail, failed to respond to a Court Order demanding they settle an award for damages.

The compensation claim came to Court in October, which issued a judgement in favour of a passenger who had been abandoned when the train company experienced signalling problems on route to Sheffield in the Summer. Promises to provide alternative transport to more than 40 rail users did not materialise and passengers had to try to make their own way home from an unstaffed station with NO toilet facilities. They were left for more than an hour before Transport Police dealing with public safety issues as a result of the crisis, advised them to find taxis. It was only then they realised that Arriva had abandoned them.

When the rail operator failed to comply with the Court Order, a Warrant of Execution was issued and Court Bailiffs confirmed today that this too had fallen on deaf ears.

Arriva Rail have just days to comply if they are to avoid the issuing of a Winding Up Order, which could place millions of journeys in jeopardy across the Christmas holiday period.

The website states "Northern is part of the Arriva group, one of the largest providers of passenger transport in Europe. Owned by Deutsche Bahn, Arriva employs more than 60,000 people and delivers more than 2.2 billion passenger journeys across 14 European counties each year."

However Arriva are no strangers to winding up sections of their portfolio.

In February this year, 17 companies belonging to Arriva were would up by York based Accountants, Begbies Traynor.